


To the Day

by roadsoftrial



Series: Cor Leonis Week 2018 [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Grief, Lost Love, M/M, Unrequited Love, cor x sadness and regrets, i hurt him because i care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-06 18:50:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16838368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roadsoftrial/pseuds/roadsoftrial
Summary: Cor stares at the bouquet for long seconds as if piecing together a puzzle that has no matching pieces. He finally notices the small envelope with his name on it tucked underneath the string when he lifts his foot. He bends down, holds it with the tip of his fingers as he unfolds the delicate flap. Inside, a note:I miss you, my love. No name attached.(Written for day 3 of Cor week — Flowers left at his doorstep with anonymous note saying “I miss you, my love”)





	To the Day

Cor awakens to the startling sound of a doorbell echoing through the house. He takes a full minute to pry his eyes open, to take in his surroundings, to remember where he is and what he’s was doing here before he somehow fell asleep.

The papers spread across the table encircling him remind him that he’s sitting in the makeshift office he was able to set up in Regis’ old house in Cape Caem. He must’ve fallen asleep examining hunter reports, the cool afternoon breeze from the open window lulling him to sleep, saving him from the stuffy, dusty air that floats through the seldom-lived-in house. He curses himself for dozing off so easily, when he’s so often taken pride in how resilient (how stubborn, Regis would always say) he used to be, once, in his stand-offs with drowsiness.

Times have been hard, he supposes. Perhaps his sleep hasn’t been as restful as it ought’ve, of late.

He doesn’t recall seeing a doorbell by the house entrance, but he’s never been one to clutter his mind with useless details. He makes his way downstairs and towards the front door, making a mental checklist of everyone’s whereabouts, making sure the almost oppressive silence throughout the house isn’t something he needs to concern himself with. He peers through the window on his way down the stairs, trying to figure out who could possibly know about this house but not own a key. He draws a blank, and Kotetsu is in his hand before he’s even aware he’s summoned the weapon. He kicks the door open and stands still, analyzing his surroundings, ready to draw. It takes a few beats for him to realise he’s stepped onto something soft that makes a crinkling sound under his feet: flowers, wrapped in Kraft paper, held together by a white string. White lilies and carnations, some deep red, other lighter with stripes of white, and clusters of lilacs scattered between the large flowers. Cor stares at the bouquet for long seconds as if piecing together a puzzle that has no matching pieces. He finally notices the small envelope with his name on it tucked underneath the string when he lifts his foot. He bends down, holds it with the tip of his fingers as he unfolds the delicate flap. Inside, a note:

 _I miss you, my love._ No name attached.

My love.

I miss you, my love.

He lets the words circle around inside of him as he tries to pinpoint why they make him feel so uneasy. And then it sinks in.

He’s heard those very words before. Twice.

The first time, they are coming out of his own mouth, muttered under his breath as he sits on the rocky edge of some haven near Cleigne, a half-empty bottle of whisky he’s snatched out of Cid’s bag at his side. He is young and not stupid, but he sure feels like he is.

 _I miss you, my love,_ then a huff, deep and humourless, then hands covering his eyes, rubbing like it could wipe all these unwanted thoughts from his mind.

 _I miss you,_ as if the one he missed wasn’t right there, sound asleep a mere few feet away from him.

 _I miss you, my love,_ as if he has any right to those words, to those feelings he doesn’t know what to do with, as if none of these words are made a thousand times heavier from the simple fact that they’re coming out of his mouth, as if the gods hadn’t decided to play some sort of cruel game using him as a pawn, by making him unable to love or care, only to lift the ban without warning, watching in amusement as he stumbles around trying to make sense of this new burden that every song and every fool who’s ever been in love swear should make him feel lighter than air.

But that’s not for him. It was never meant for him.

Because Regis is King, and Cor is Cor, and nothing can ever change that. Because Cor is cursed to anger and loneliness as his only suitable companions, their presence so overwhelming at times he’s had to learn to grow numb to it, but he’s never quite been able to become truly impervious to the sharp jolts of pain that would rip throughout his entire body each time Regis’ eyes sink into his, try as he might.

_I miss you, my love._

He’d tried to become accustomed to the words, to wrap himself in them, in hope that they’d stop hurting him so, one day.

That never quite worked, either.

_I miss you, my love._

The words are whispered to him the second time around, years later, mumbled over the phone between waves of static and distortion, preceded by a quivering sigh and followed by laughter and a half-hearted, ‘ _sorry, I’m really drunk’_ that does a very poor job of sounding any kind of convincing.

Cor doesn’t know what to say in return, then, because he’s never learned to let go, never learned to allow himself to say the things he wants to say, never learned that sometimes, doing things without knowing for certain how they’ll turn out is all worth it, if there’s a slight chance it might make that one person smile as a result.

(He’s never learned that smiles aren’t always meant to hurt, either.)

 _Say it again,_ he isn’t able to say, _again and again_. _Swear that you mean it, that people do mean it, sometimes._

‘Be safe, Ulric. Get some sleep,’ he says instead.

Cor had tried to keep Nyx at arms’ length, but Nyx had always been a slippery bastard that way, and there hadn’t been much he could do against that.

Cor wishes he’d known, then, that this would be the only time he’d ever hear him so soft, so vulnerable. He wishes he’d known, then, that this would be the last time he’d ever hear his voice.

Cor shakes his head, shakes those cruel, cherished memories away, stuffs the envelope in his pocket like he’s stuffed the thought of them in the back of his mind for so long. Those days are behind him, now. He tries to grab the bundle of flowers, still, in hopes that he can place it in some sort of container suitable enough to keep them fresh and beautiful for a few days at least, maybe more, if he’s lucky.

But Cor has never been a lucky man, and everything turns to black before he can realise the flowers have already disappeared.

Cor awakens with a gasp and cold sweat running down his back, and tears he’s not willing to acknowledge drying on his cheeks. He awakens on the left side of his bed in his small Lestallum apartment. There is no breeze, no sunlight, no pillow made of hunters’ reports, no crash of the ocean to lull him back to sleep. Only night and damp, stuffy air and screams of drunken abandon down in the street.

There is no one. No one to long for, no one scrambling through literal hell and high water to make it back at his side.

Only people long gone, and the bitter, everlasting taste in his mouth at the thought that he had everything to do with it.

It’s been a year, to the day.

**Author's Note:**

> I... yeah.
> 
> (come yell at me on [tumblr](https://thelegendarynoctgar.tumblr.com) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/RoadsOfTrial)!)


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